My Mother has been in and out of the hospital for a few years now. She has been drinking all her life(alcoholic)and a couple years back she had trouble eating so she kept getting weaker as a result. She complained that she had trouble swallowing or she would always throw up anything she ate, but she could always eat her favorite, Indian food. So I suspect the real issue was her mental state but she never took this idea seriously and she only continued to get worse.
My mother can't walk anymore because she is only skin and bones. She had physical therapy but it never showed much progress.
Almost a month ago, my mother went back into the hospital because she was feeling worse. She was extremely malnourished and dehydrated when she first went in. This time, she finally got a feeding tube and her condition was starting to improve. She was starting to look healthier. However, because of the feeding tube, my mother had caught C. Difficle. She was put under antibiotic treatment and the doctors said that she should be under treatment for around 2 to 3 weeks.
After another week or so, my mothers mental status began to decline. Not much, but she began to say this that didn't make sense. In a normal conversation, she suddenly said"The robots are coming". When she was asked what she was talking about, she replied"Oh, never mind."
The next day, she fell into a coma. The doctors couldn't figure out why. As of today, she will have been in a coma for 9 days.
She soon after had to be Intubated and moved to the ICU.
In the beginning she was responding to pain but no other external stimuli. Her eyes are responsive, her legs twitch, she yawns, her eyes sometimes open but she is never conscious.
She has had 5 total EEGs, 2 CAT scans, an MRI, an ultrasound, and a couple X-rays.
In the beginning, all the tests had very underwhelming results. They didn't show anything. The most confusing thing for me is that the doctors in the ICU have different opinions. All of them were very unsure in the beginning of why she was in a coma and wouldn't give us a straight answer. They would also say her tests showed nothing abnormal but then one of the docs suddenly told me that they weren't completely normal. They weren't showing anything worthwhile to mention but they weren't completely normal either.
A couple days ago they suspected that she was having seizures so they put her on seizure medication. The EEG never showed her to be having seizures, but her body was twitching in such a way that seemed to show her having seizures. They put her on Propafol and another medication I do not know.
This made one of the doctors think she was suffering from Anoxic Encephalopathy. However, they didn't start treating her for it, probably because they still weren't sure.
But another doctor in the ICU wasn't convinced that she was having seizures. So he reduced her seizure medication and performed another 24-hour EEG (this would be her 4th one). And once again, it wasn't showing any clear signs of a seizure but something showed that she had brain damage of some kind. I haven't been given the details yet as I am several hours away from the hospital my mother is staying at. I call to check in though.
I hope someone out there has some ideas. My mother is only 63 years old. And I am her 19 year old daughter. I am her only family and next of kin so I have power of attorney. They have mentioned transferring her to another facility but I am unsure because I haven't been given any answers. I want everything to be ruled out and tried before I transfer her to another facility or terminate her.
They aren't concerned with her liver being a problem, even though it is in bad condition. She is stable but still suffers from the C. Difficile. I have read that C. Diff can cause a coma and some of the doctors believe it is the C. Difficle while others still have no clue what is going on. One of them still believes it is anoxic encephalopathy but is very unsure about it. I have brought up the possibility of her getting a fecal transplant and they responded saying that it is only done as a last resort. I believe that this is certainly a last resort kind of situation but I understand that they don't do them often so perhaps they aren't confident in doing the procedure.
I am honestly not fond of this hospital. In the past, my father was in there and very displeased with the care. And with my mother's condition progressively getting worse over the years despite going to the hospital several times a year doesn't help their case.
I am very unsure of what to do. I would like to bring up more possibilities of treatment to the doctors and hopefully they will follow through with them but I am not educated enough in this field to come up with solutions myself.
So if anyone can help, please response ASAP. I knew my mother wasn't going to last much longer but this is too sudden. She deserves more time. I need her for a little bit longer.